Steam City Pirates (6 page)

“Please stay for dinner. When have you last had freshly killed venison and vegetables from a garden?” Lowe was closing up his laboratory for the night. I followed him out and stood behind him as he locked the door securely. “There are spies everywhere!” he said, smiling.

I turned around, almost reflexively, and I spotted somebody out behind the barn. He was tall, and he wore city clothes. His head moved in quick, jerky movements, and his body bent over in sections as he pumped the well water. He looked up at me from beside the spouting stream of water and picked up the porcelain cup attached to the well by a leather strap. As he moved the cup up to his lips in the same mechanical way, his other hand went to his bowler cap, and he tipped it toward me and smiled.

“How long do you think he was there?” I asked, pointing toward the gentleman.

“We get people who often stop by for a drink. We’re the only farm for ten miles,” said Professor Lowe, waving at the drinking man.

The tall gentleman finished his refreshment, shook out the cup, and tipped his hat again before he walked toward the one-horse cart parked next to a tree near the front gate. We watched him walk in jerky steps until he reached his rig. He then climbed up into the front seat of the buckboard and took the reins. He applied his whip as if his arm were metal, coming down upon the horse’s back in two straight but separate motions.

I did have a wonderful dinner with this large family, and Missus Lowe said I should stay overnight and leave in the morning. I agreed, as I was quite tired. I was eager to visit my friends and tell them about what I had learned from Professor Lowe. After dinner, I privately told Thaddeus Lowe I would continue corresponding with him concerning this governmental case against possible terrorists and pirates. He agreed to be my advisor, and we shook hands.

* * *

I was able to sleep on board the train to New York, so I was ready to visit Becky Charming when I arrived. I wanted to tell her about what I had discovered from little Seth and from Professor Lowe, and I also needed to ask her some questions about why she thought we should work with Doctor Adler at the temple. It had been her idea in the first place to establish our main office there, so I believed she probably had some other suggestions about what we could do there to set traps to catch these pirates before they began attacking. I wondered why Rebecca chose the temple in the first place. Was it because of her mystical transcendental connection with the Over Soul?

This new kind of sleuthing was rather aggravating to me. I missed the old ways of finding clues in the here and now instead of in the future. I also thought it was difficult attempting to keep one step ahead of a group of criminals which had been doing this kind of thing much longer than we had. Once again, our only true connection with this world of time travel and advanced science was an eight-year-old
Mazikeen
. He had warned us about the dark side, but who was paying any attention? Now we were forced into playing this new game of learning on the job, and the detective work was going to be quite difficult.

Some of the possible scenarios that could stand in our way included another world organization that had connections beyond the United States. This was what was behind the kidnapping case of Doctor Arthur Daniel Mergenthaler, and I had the belief that evil was evil no matter how far in the past or how far in the future you were able to travel. In addition, what if we attempted to counter one of their devices, such as the submarine, and we could not develop our counter-device fast enough? Many people could die in the meantime, and their deaths would all be on our hands.

I had to get out of this dower mood, and I was happy to be visiting my darling. She was the one woman who had been able to teach me how to love again—both in the spiritual and physical senses—and I would be forever grateful to her for that.

After the competition with Hester Jane “The Grabber” Haskins, Becky had won the support of the liberals in New York City. Although Haskins kept her dives and brothels in the Tenderloin District, Rebecca Charming was given exclusive territorial control over the more exclusive and up-scale Theater District at Union Square near Broadway. The rents were still high for her, but she made up for it with the wealth and reputations of her clientele, many of whom were important city dignitaries in both the academic and professional worlds.

I had changed into my detective clothing: white shirt, black coat and vest, and wool army overcoat, at my apartment on 42
^nd
Street. I also had my trusted Bowie knife strapped to the outside of my calf, and my Colt pistol inserted within a snug leather holster inside my coat. The crowd on the avenues was a welcome sight after having spent two days in the wilds of Pennsylvania. I much preferred the civilized uproar of New York City to the noisy roosters and children at the Lowe farm.

Becky was sitting inside her parlor when I turned the key and opened the door to her large apartment in the Plaza District. She was sitting at her secretary table doing her ladies’ books. Rebecca Charming Jones kept meticulous records of each one of her girl’s rendezvous with her gentleman callers. She tabulated the costs of medical care as well as the rental of hotel rooms, if needed, and she put all of this into ledger statements. These were copied into individual statements which she then gave to each of her employees.

I also noted that Becky was wearing one of her humorous dresses. She was in an all-black dress reminiscent of England’s Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria wore widow's mourning clothes, which were black in color after the death of her husband Albert in 1861 at the age of 42. She had mourned her husband's death for almost 10 years and she said that for the rest of her sovereignty she would wear black. I knew my Becky was wearing this dress as an inside joke, so I decided to play along. The bottom of her dress, however, was cut short to reveal fishnet stockings.

“Your majesty!” I said, taking my porkpie hat from my head and bowing, waving the cap across my chest. “I do hope you can accept an audience with such a lowly rogue as I. I know it is quite late, and my white stallion is quite agitated outside.”

Becky turned around, saw me standing there, and she stood up. She ran over to me and put her arms around my neck. “Quite so! My good Sir Galahad, you have come at last. The Irish are in need of discipline, so I shall send you down posthaste to quell their riotously famished stomachs!”

I laughed and sat down at the end of her weekly color-changing French divan. This week it was blue. She moved from her desk to sit down next to me. Her green eyes were their usual sparkling pools of joy, and her curly-blonde tresses fondled the black collar of her dress in a most attractive way.

“I visited Professor Thaddeus Lowe in Valley Forge. He was in charge of the Army Balloon Corps during the war. I suppose you’ve heard about Seth’s vision?” I wanted to get right into our new case. In fact, I was thinking about perhaps installing teletype machines at each of our abodes. One here, one at my apartment, one at Bessie’s mansion, one at Walter McKenzie’s dockside offices in Hoboken, New Jersey. We needed to seriously consider improving our lines of communications.

“No. What did he see?” Becky leaned forward in expectation.

“That’s strange. Bessie never told you?” I was wondering how she had not heard from Bessie about Seth’s report from the future. I was gone two days, and yet she had not been informed.

“Oh, I was out and about town. You know how busy I can get,” she said. “Please, Patrick, let me hear about it.”

There was a crashing noise of something hitting the floor in Becky’s bedroom. Having graced its confines before, I knew she had no pet nor other animal which might have done such a deed. As I walked over to the door to the bedroom, I could hear Becky moving from the divan.

“Who’s in there?” I shouted at the door. There was no response, so I turned the knob. It opened to the sight of another Becky Charming splayed out on the floor of the bedroom. She had knocked over a lamp, and it was dripping liquid gas from the inside. Glass was strewn over the floor in fragmented shards.

This other Becky was looking up at me, her mouth covered by a wool stocking tied around the back of her head. Her eyes were wide, and she kept tossing her blonde curls from side-to-side in exasperation, as her hands and feet were also bound together behind her black dress.

“Becky?” I pictured little Seth outside the theater after we had seen
The Black Crook
. He spoke to us—lectured to us—about the other
mazikeen
, the evil ones.
They will torture you, and burn down your homes, and rip the flesh off your bones!

I spun around to meet a ball of steel that hit the side of my head with a dull thud. Blackness.

When I came to, I could see two plump-brown thighs straddling my chest. These legs were on the body of a woman who was wearing a rubber butcher’s apron over them. I could also feel a long, curved blade pressed against my Adam’s apple. I knew it was extremely sharp because I could barely feel its edge; it felt just the way a barber’s blade touches against your jaw when you sit in his chair and are all lathered up.

Above me, a woman with raven black hair and two differently colored eyes was staring down at me. She was no longer in the form of Becky Charming. I looked into those gray and blue eyes and concentrated. “Are you a
mazikeen
?” I asked her.

When she smiled at me, all of her teeth were gold! They were perfectly formed, and yet their shining brilliance made me think of the Bible story of King Solomon and his mines. “You
are
a detective! Inquisitor Manette told me you were sly. He has watched you from his dominion for several years. You should feel honored. Now that misfortune has struck, I am afraid you must now be disposed of.”

I strained my neck so I could see past her into the bedroom. The authentic Becky was still tied-up and lying on the floor. Becky’s eyebrows arched. She flailed her head from side-to-side. I knew I had to think of something very quickly.

“Did your leader also tell you that we have a
mazikeen
? His name is Seth, and he stands invisibly right behind you. I believe his sword is a bit larger than yours.” I felt the weight of her body shift. She was turning around to search for her adversary. I knew I must act at once or become a sacrificial bull.

I twisted under her and she was thrown off-balance. She tumbled over onto the floor, and the sword clattered across the wood surface until it slid under the rug near the front door. In one motion, I reached into my leather holster inside my right coast pocket and pulled out my Colt service revolver. I sprang to my feet and pointed the barrel at her as she stared at me in a crouch in front of me, from where she was about ready to make a spring for her sword.

“When will you be attacking the ships?” I wanted information before I tied her up. That was my mistake. I should have tied her up first.

One second she was there, glaring at me with her golden teeth. The next second she had vanished like the Cheshire Cat. I knew she was still there, but I could not risk shooting at where I thought she might be. I might hit Becky. I tried to listen carefully for this evil
mazikeen
. I could not hear her moving or breathing. There was a deadly silence. All I could hear was the wind blowing through the laced curtains of the open window overlooking the street three stories below. Was she going to come up behind me and slice me into steaks? If she went after the sword now I knew I could hear her in time to fire.

I decided to go over into the bedroom to cut Becky loose. What if our visitor had other
mazikeen
with her? I walked into the bedroom, bent down, and pulled my Bowie knife out with my other hand. I reached over and cut the ropes on Becky’s hands and feet. I sliced off the gag over her mouth.

“What are you doing? Go out there! She can get the sword!” Becky screamed.

“She’s already gone,” I said, lifting Becky to her feet. I stood there with my Queen Victoria for a moment. She seemed confused.

“What do you mean? I saw you pointing your gun at her,” said Becky, grabbing my forearm.

“She has the other skill,” I said, stroking Becky’s red wrists with my fingers. “I knew there was no chance to capture this
mazikeen
.”

“She must be out there,” Becky said, and she broke away from me to run into the parlor. She waved her hands wildly in the air, running in circles all around the room, but Becky came into no other human contact.

“Her other skill is flight,” I said, as I walked over to the open window. “An invisible woman, even with gold teeth, can easily fly out this window,” I reached up and pulled down the window pane. “She flew the coop.”

“I swear, O’Malley. It wasn’t my fault. She must have entered when she was invisible, and I had the door open while bringing in some things from the market. You never said there were these
mazikeen
people on the other side!” said Becky, sitting down on her divan and resting her head back against the cushion. “Why me? Was she just waiting until you got here?”

“Yes. Also, we did know there might be creatures like her on the other side. Remember after the theater matinee? Seth instructed us about the two kinds of
mazikeen
. She is the evil variety. This group is using this one just the way we are using Seth,” I said, sitting down next to Becky.

“It certainly is a terrible development. How do we counter it?” She placed her hand upon my shoulder.

“We need to ask Seth and possibly Doctor Adler. What I was going to tell you about Seth was that he saw a vision into the future. He foretold an invasion by pirates who are going to attack our ships in the harbor. At least, I would assume it’s going to happen in New York harbor. He also saw a huge balloon that was able to bring up the stolen cargo with a system of ropes and pulleys. I was in Pennsylvania talking about how we might prepare for these pirates. I visited the head of the Army’s Balloon Corps during the war. His name is Professor Thaddeus Lowe. I believe he will be able to help us,” I said.

“I hope so. Did you like the temple? Bessie said Doctor Adler prepared a room for us there, and now we even have a way to travel through time. Won’t that make us their equals?” said Becky.